This text is dealing with the intersection of three main elements: abstraction, geometrical form and distortion. Together these three paths forms garments around and in relation to the body. Throughout the project body is reduced into rectangular planes and cylinders. To reduce body into geometrical shapes can be explained as a method or a system through which body is approach as a neutral form. Because body is the source for abstraction, this approach can be applied to any part of the body and repeated in various compositions as it will always relate to a body form in some ways. The project also focuses on how to build holistic compositions through hues. Geometrically reduced body shapes are arranged through three dimensional compositions in which relationships between dominant, subdominant and subordinate forms are specifically in focus. Garments are embodied through weaving, Dominant and subdominant forms are investigated through distortion as a result of leaving warp and weft threads unattached in certain areas in the woven material. The technique expresses both organic and geometric in the material itself. In combination with colour blocks and panels and cylinders as forms, the technique was able to be translated into wearable forms. The project was developed as a dialogue between intuitive search and an intelligent reflective approach to outcomes. Because the projects put strong focus on subconscious notion of form emotions and senses plays an important role as guidance throughout the project. Findings are presented in collection of ten outfits where aesthetic qualities of form are put as a primary factor. / Program: Konstnärlig masterutbildning i mode- och textildesign

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It is well known that the colour preferences of ganglion and LGN cells do not match the four perceptually simple colours red, green blue and yellow. It is also known that although colour perception is distorted in the peripheral visual field, there are four hues that appear stable with eccentricity. These are defined as peripherally invariant hues. Both of these observations must in some way reflect the physiological substrate of neurons at different stages of the primary visual pathway. The experiments described here are aimed at understanding the link between the physiology and the perception of colour by studying the characteristics of peripheral colour visionThe following questions have been addressed; i) to what extent does colour matching rely on the retinal physiological substrate? ii) what is the reason for the discrepancy between invariant and unique green and how is cone contrast linked to this paradox? iii) how are the `special' hues (invariant and unique) related to human evolution? iv) how does peripheral colour vision vary between males and females?An asymmetric colour matching paradigm and a colour naming task have been employed. In the colour matching task, 24 chromatic axes of variable purity are used. Observers match the chromaticity of a 3 degree peripheral spot with that of a 1 degree parafoveal spot. The results are expressed in terms of hue rotation, saturation match and cone contrast. In the colour naming experiment the observers name 40 chromatic axes as either red, blue, green or yellow and colour naming functions are derived. The central maxima of these functions are defined as the unique hues. The results suggest that colour matching and cone opponency reflect the characteristics of the retinal neural network as they exhibit nasal-temporal asymmetries, similar to known physiological asymmetries. Although three of the peripherally invariant hues match the unique counterparts, invariant and unique green are markedly different for all observers. In an important control experiment unique hues are shown to be stable with eccentricity and purity. This confirms that these attributes are not confounding factors for the observed discrepancy between invariant and unique green. Unlike for the other 'special' hues the RMS cone contrast of invariant green differs markedly between parafoveal and peripheral targets. It is likely that the cone contrast remains unchanged only if the stimuli excite the same number of cones. Two invariant and two unique hues (blue and yellow) fall on the daylight locus suggesting that discrimination in these regions of the colour space is strongly influenced by terrestrial illumination. Moreover, the inter-individual variability is found to be minimised around the daylight locus showing that the blue-yellow system is more stable across colour normal populations than the red-green system. A statistically significant difference is demonstrated between the peripheral colour vision of males and females. This may be attributed to the M-cone polymorphism which in addition to X-chromosome inactivation, results in more than three cone types in the female retina.

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Loss is a fundamental part of the human experience, from the loss of security and innocence that comes with the necessary separation of child from parent to the ultimate loss of life. Along the way, there are the losses of jobs, of incomes, of homes; the losses of friendships, of family members, of lovers; the losses of direction, of control, of hope. As cognitive and caring beings, humans struggle to cope with these losses, to greater and lesser degrees of success. This is the theme at the heart of this thesis. Fire Ants is composed of ten short stories, fictive works, which differ in specific subject matter, yet deal unilaterally with issues of loss. Like the venomous creatures that threaten to eat B. D. Packard alive in the title story, life eats away at a number of characters in the collection who are deficient. The narrators in "Aftermath" and "Hues," for example, suffer psychological -- if not physical -- deaths. But not all of the characters lack coping mechanisms, unhealthy as they may sometimes be. As the stories unfold, some characters begin to gain small degrees of perspective and understanding, to learn that while life is full of loss, it is not always entirely bleak. As demonstrated in "Cross Creek," good exists, though it is not always where one might expect it. And life can be full despite loss, as depicted in "Stitches."

Tendons are able to undergo repeated cyclic loading in vivo without permanent deformation or mechanical failure. However, diseased, traumatised and decellularised tendons gradually lose the ability to resist load and fail because of creep deformation. The molecular basis of the mechanical properties of tendon and how cells establish and maintain these properties is poorly understood. New knowledge in this area is required to develop novel medical strategies to improve tendon repair and regeneration. Recent advances in tissue bioengineering have led to the formation of fibrin-based tendon-like tissue (‘tendon constructs’) that display the mechanical properties and ultrastructure of embryonic tendon. This thesis presents the characterisation of the tendon constructs derived from primary fibroblasts to understand the relationship between the cells and matrix during tissue development, and to establish the standard of in vitro engineered tendons. These findings facilitated protocol development to engineer human tendon-like tissue derived from stem cells. Novel findings of constructs formed from differentiated human pluripotent stem cells in feeder and feeder-free systems are presented. Fibrin gels were seeded with human dermal fibroblasts (HDF), chick tendon fibroblasts (CTF), MAN5 (Manchester, embryonic stem) cells, human embryonic stem cells (HuES7) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS). The gels were cultured until isometric tendon-like constructs were formed (T0) or continued for four or ten days post-formation. The mechanical properties, histology and gene expression of the constructs were analysed and compared between the constructs seeded with the aforementioned cell types. Varying the initial cell number (tested in CTF-seeded fibrin and collagen based constructs) significantly affected the final cell count and the mechanical properties of the constructs differentially at T0 and T10. A non-linear relationship exists between the initial and final cell number, and, between the initial cell number and mechanical properties. However, the results showed that cell number impacted cell-matrix stabilisation as strength per se was strongly dependent on initial cell number. Collagen-based constructs showed a significantly lower stiffness compared with fibrin-based constructs at T0 and T10. The stem cells and primary cells reproducibly underwent morphogenesis to form a 3D tissue similar to embryonic tendon in vivo expressing ECM markers such as collagens type I and III. The tissue also exhibited the ultrastructural characteristics and biomechanical profile of immature tendons. RNA seq and qPCR results demonstrated the upregulation of tendon-specific genes. Tendon-like tissue generated from human stem cells and HDFs in vitro has the potential to replace functional tissue lost through disease and to advance the understanding of the molecular basis of human tenogenesis.

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